When Equifax announced last week that its data systems had been compromised by a hacker during the May to July timeframe of this year, every consumer in the U.S. should have taken notice. Names, addresses, social security numbers and financial information were exposed to hackers. As one of the three huge credit monitoring companies in the U.S., Equifax presumably has financial and personal data on most adults in the country. By their estimate, the personal and financial data of some 143 million Americans was potentially exposed.

We encourage everyone to check to see if they were affected by the data breach by going to the following website: www.equifaxsecurity2017.com. If an individual is affected, Equifax will provide one year’s worth of free credit monitoring through its affiliated company.

Equifax originally caught heat from consumer groups because it required consumers who were affected to waive their rights to take further legal action when they signed up for the free credit monitoring. Recently, Equifax has amended its approach and will not require the waiver of rights.